Foodie Tues-dee On a Wednesday?!?! Sure!

Hello fellow interweb friends!

Now, I know I haven't posted one of these in a long time, but that's just because I haven't gone out to eat that much and if I did, it wasn't great enough for me to share. But then again, maybe I should share things I don't like as well...I don't know! Thoughts, comments, leave them down below and help a girl out, please and thank you!

Anyways, for this one, I wanted to share with you my thoughts on Starbucks' Bistro Boxes/Sandwiches/Salads. Now, I know the prices for these things are ridiculous, but when you're an avid Starbucks-goer like myself, then most of the time, they wouldn't cost a thing because you'd just use your free item to redeem it. Anyways, I love their chicken caesar salad as well as the roasted tomato and mozzarella panini. Both of these have one thing in common that just makes them extremely delicious and that is: roasted tomatoes!!! Good lord, I love me some roasted tomatoes because they just smell amazing and tastes delicious!

Now, does that not look delicious or what?!?!? So this is the panini and I just had it last night before my horrible 3 hour long night class. The sandwich was toasted to perfection because it had just the right amount of crispiness to it and everything blended so well together in the sandwich. The taste, texture, and coloration of it just makes me so happy and pleased, so much that I had to share it with you guys!

Gosh, looking at the picture now and see this all over again makes me want to go out and get one right now. If any of you guys are hungry from this, please do go try it out! The best part is all this gloryness and deliciousness is only like 380 calories! Ya, that is not bad at all, especially since you are more than likely to burn more calories than that in a day just by doing everyday activities like breathing and laughing. 

Until next time,

Uyen

Foodie Tues-dee #5

Hello fellow interweb friends!

It is that time of week again where I share with you guys my food adventures! For this week, I want to share with you an old favorite, but definitely a good one. 

Brodard Restaurant is a little place that serves delicious Vietnamese food and it has always been one of my favorite places to eat. Their infamous pork rolls are just amazing, especially paired with the shrimp paste sauce. My friends who I've taken here and exposed them to these rolls all love them, which pretty much means that they are way too flippen amazing! Then today, I tried this noodle dish with grilled shrimp, pork, chicken with a side of "Asian greens" that consisted of pickled carrots and something else mixed in with thinly cut cucumbers, bean sprouts, and various herbally leaves. 

Because all these dishes had a lot of veggies in them, it made them super light and somewhat healthy too. The flavors are a good mix of savory, sweet, and cooling/refreshing from all the vegetables. Each dish came out with their own sauce, but the basis of the sauce is either shrimp or fish.

I cannot rave about this restaurant enough! It is super affordable, great portions, tastes amazing, and I seriously cannot find one bad thing about it! If you guys get a chance, do go check them out and order some pork rolls for me!

Until next time,

Uyen

Foodie Tues-dee #4

Hello fellow interweb friends!

So for this Foodie Tues-dee, I thought I'd share a newfound delicious snack that is delicious, nutritious, and all-around wonderful! 

That's right guys! As boring as it may seem, this trail mix, or as they labeled it, energy mix, is so flippen amazing! We already know how healthy and filling nuts are for us, so there's not much else I need to say there. The thing that makes this taste so good is because it is a balance between salty/savory flavors and rich, sweet, chocolatey deliciousness! Since it's covered with dark chocolate, it makes it a little bit healthier. As for the serving size, a quarter of this box is only 190 calories, I'm not a calorie counter so I don't know if it's good or bad, but in comparison to things like the hundred calorie packs, I'd rather eat this 190 calories and be more satisfied with my snack! 

So where can you get your little paws on this little box of healthy heaven?!?! Well, I got mine at Food-4-Less, but I know Ralph's also carries the same things, same packing and all, so I am going to go on a whim and say that Food-4-Less and Ralph's are of the same company. 

With me being in school and classes all day, these are perfect for me because I can munch on it throughout the day and hardly make a dent in the box. This is a perfect snack for anyone really, especially when  you're in a rush and don't have time to pack a lunch or get some breakfast. If you want, they have all different kinds of mixes. I prefer the energy one just because I need as much energy as possible to stay awake and deal with my boring professors!

That's all for now!

Until next time, 

Uyen

Foodie Tues-dee #3

Hello fellow interweb friends!

For this week's Foodie Tues-dee, I thought I'd tell you about my first experience at Wing Stop! Very simply put, I LOVE WING STOP! It is the first place that makes wings KRISPY AND SAUCY without being soggy! Don't get me wrong, all the other places like Buffalo Wild Wings serves some really good wings, but for some reason, Wing Stop wings are just better because they manage to keep the krispy and crunciness of the fried chicken even though it's drenched in the sauce. 

So for my first time, I decided to try out both a hot sauce and a not so hot one. I ordered the 6 piece meal and got 3 original hot wings and 3 garlic parmesan with a side order of fries. I went through those wings like no other cause, well I love anything fried and chicken related. Both were really good, the only thing I'd suggest them doing is make the garlic parmesan a little more flavorful cause I couldn't really tell there was much garlic or parmesan in the season, but regardless, it still tasted delicious! As for the original hot, it's not super hot, which is completely fine with me and of course also tasted great! The one thing that I found out was a really good mix is their original hot sauce mixed with a little ranch and drizzled or can be used as a dip for the fries! Since the fries do have somewhat of a sweet taste to it, adding the hot sauce to the ranch gave the fries an extra kick, a little more flavor. My friend who was also there with me since we went there for lunch decided to try my special fries sauce/dip and she loved it too!

All in all, I think my first time at Wing Stop is pretty darn amazing and I can definitely say that I will be going back very soon!

 

Until next time,

With love,

Uyen 

Happy 50th Birthday Mummy!

Hello fellow interweb friends!

So exactly a week ago, it was my mom's 50th birthday! Dude, that is like 5 decades, that is a lot of time but hey, she still be looking good! I know this is like a week late but still, I wanted to dedicate a post on my blog to my mom, my inspiration, my role model, my rock, and everything that is the most important to me in the world. I am super duper grateful that I have someone like her to call my mom and to look up to. She is the most selfless and caring person you can meet; as my dad would sometimes say, she has way too much fun helping people who need her. Not only that, she has sacrificed so much for both my brother and I. Instead of being out there working like other moms, my mom tries to work from home just so she can spend time with my brother and I and make sure we are safe to and from school and well-fed. There is no one that I think can be a better mom as well as a member of the community like my mom and, even though I deny it sometimes, when I grow up, I do want to be somewhat like her, not exactly but just some, especially the aging part!

Now, let's get down to how we like to celebrate birthdays within our family! Since our family is small with only four people, we usually don't make it a huge thing, especially when it's mine or my parents' just because we're not the wealthiest of families to do big parties and such, so we love to go out and eat as a family! On the day of my mom's birthday, we went out to dinner to this little Chinese restaurant place near my house called King Harbor Seafood. As you can see, we went a little crazy when ordering food but it's ok since everyone in my family loves to eat! When you hear Chinese food, you'd probably think it is greasy and nasty, but this place isn't too bad! We ordered this fried chicken (cause you all know by now, I love chicken and so does my family) and it came out super krispy but not one bit oily and gross whatsoever! So that dinner was amazing and I think our entire family was in a food coma for like the entire night and the next morning as well. We may not be partying hard but we can sure eat our little hearts out!

Final Touch Bakery

And then of course, every birthday cannot be complete with a birthday cake! So every time we have a birthday, my aunt and cousin will always bring us a cake. For my mom's birthday, my aunt brought the one cake with the flowers, and may I add, these are fresh flowers used to decorate the cake, making it look super pretty! So for that cake, it was just white cake with and I want to say some kind of vanilla cream-like icing and frosting on and inside between the layers of the cake. Besides the frosting between the cake layers, there's fresh fruits! This one was a mixed fruit cake so it had strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and black berries. As for the second cake with the really detailed icing technique, this one was also white cake but had passionfruit icing between the cake layers mixed with raspberries. This one is a little bit tangier, different kind of taste than what you'd think cake is suppose to be but still pretty delicious! So if you know anything about my family, we love cake, so these two cakes, not small at all, were devoured in a matter of days! If you ever are in Orange County, specifically Westminster/Little Saigon area, do check out this bakery; the place is called Final Touch Bakery (I will also link the bakery below in the picture's caption). I'm sure they have locations in other places too but I've only seen one, so I will post their link if you guys are interested in checking it out. Cake is super duper important for all kinds of occasion and well nothing beats a pretty and delicious cake! Since it is kind of a Vietnamese-French fusion kind of bakery, if you get a chance to try it, you will find that the flavoring is not super decadent so you don't get that sick, icky feeling you can get after indulging in a piece of cake that is too overly sweet. It is the perfect blend between butteriness, sweetness, and a slight of tart if you want to add on the fruits!

That's it for now,

Until next time,

With love,

Uyen

Foodie Tues-dee #2

Hello fellow interweb friends!

So today is Tuesday, which means it is also Foodie Tues-dee, which also means I get to tell you about some of my favorite foods!!! Lately I've been trying really hard to stay healthy, but my body will definitely get some cravings, and as we all know, it is better to satisfy a craving than to completely ignore it and then end up over-indulging, which is worse. My latest craving is just general pub food, but not any kind of pub foods! I have been craving foods specifically from the Anthill Pub & Grille, which is a nice, quaint, little pub on campus at the University of California, Irvine, which is also the school I am currently going to. The Pub not only has amazing foods but also a good beer selection and an amazing ambiance! Its nice and small, very well conditioned, so it's the perfect place to go hide out and pig out on a hot day in between classes!

One of the most infamous food you can order when you're at the Pub is the stoner fries! These things are flippin delicious, worth all the bang for your buck, but just ever so slightly not nutritious. The fries are seasoned very similarly to cajun fries and its topped with guacamole, salsa, sour cream, cheese, and a little bit of meat. It is just heaven in your mouth, definitely worth the heart attack if you eat these too much, so I don't suggest you to eat it everyday since it's probably better to live longer so you can enjoy more stoner fries! These are perfect with a beer and some good company. I usually try my hardest to minimize eating these stoner fries so sometimes I would cheat and just order regular fries. For some reason, the Pub just makes some gosh darn super good fries that I cannot walk away from! I remember, one quarter, my friend and I were pretty much at the Pub and we literally ordered every kind of fried potatoes served at the Pub; that is pretty much an order of stoner fries, regular fries, tater totes, and all in all, a walking heart attack. Now though, since I'm a tad bit more health-conscious, I decided to limit my Pub's fried potatoes consumption to pretty much none at all, but still, sometimes,  a girl's just got to indulge, especially around midterms and finals where I become overly stressed and food is my way to relax!

Now, besides all the fries and stoner fries, the Pub also has amazing sandwiches! My all time favorite is the pesto chicken with fries instead of chips. You will soon know that I love, like LOVE, chicken and I also love pesto, so putting the two together is just like heaven for me! On top of that, the side of fries and a slice of pickle just made this the bestest lunch I've had in a while! The reason why I kind of gave in and went to the Pub is because, literally, I had a dream that all my classes were at the Pub. I took that as a sign of me not going to the Pub for way too long, so while I waited for my friend to come on campus to study, I rewarded myself with this delicious little meal since I've not had it in way too long! So, usually, I'd pair this with a beer or soda, but since I am trying to be a little healthier, small steps, I decided to get a bottle of Pellegrino instead. It was just perfectly amazing and I cannot describe how happy I felt after that lunch! It was so delicious, great, wonderful, flavorful that I do not mind the fact that I just consumed a potential heart attack whatsoever!

So that's all for now,

Until next time,

With love,

Uyen